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Coming soon — Red threads – Old and new stories in art and design
Some stories are always worth telling! In this exhibition, through nearly forty works from our collection, you’ll discover how artists and designers use textiles to tell their “own” stories. Using different threads, they give shape to their stories, and those stories, in turn, shape us as human beings. In “Rode Draden,” you’ll discover the many personal narratives that come together in textiles.
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About the exhibition
Eylem Aladogan, Two Women and the reminiscence of Earth, Steel and Fire, 2017/2019. Photo: Tommy de Lange
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Jennifer Tee, Tampan Ship of Souls
Fiep Westendorp – curtain fabric “Jelke” housewives
Lilas Patard, Objectified. Photo: Josefina Eikenaar, commissioned by the TextielMuseum
Shaping stories
The stories we tell each other—and how they are told—have a profound influence on how we see ourselves and the world around us. Our beliefs, dreams and sense of self are made up of a web of narratives. In Rode draden, personal themes that shape our identity therefore take centre stage. Artist Alet Pilon, for example, deconstructs the figure of the Virgin Mary as the ultimate image of the nurturing mother in her Black Madonna, while Susanne Khalil Yusef reflects on her first visit to Palestine through a tufted drone. Themes such as religion and spirituality, gender, cultural identity, childhood stories and myths are explored across nearly forty works.
Audio tour
One artwork can evoke a hundred different stories in a hundred people. We asked textile enthusiasts from our own museum to share their personal associations with a favourite work. Colleague Mark Houtepen from Technical Services is reminded of his mother by the work Mijn plaats aan tafel 1 by Anna Verwey-Verschuure, while Head of Public Engagement Maud van Dooren speaks about her fascination with Armenian culture and history through Eylem Aladogan’s Two Women and the reminiscence of Earth, Steel and Fire / 2017/2019. Their personal stories show: there is no single perspective on a work of art—there are infinitely many.
Retelling
Red threads was originally due to open on 15 March 2020, but the first COVID-19 lockdown was announced the day before. As a result, the exhibition was only open for a limited period. We believe that the narrative qualities of textiles in themselves form an important story to tell. That is why we are now bringing this exhibition back, featuring several previously unshown works by, among others, Sheila Hicks, Sam Druant and Bé Helfferich.
Sheila Hicks, Snow White Sleeping, 1975.
What is your story? Discover all the red threads in this colourful exhibition
Featuring works by: Eylem Aladogan, Christiaan Bastiaans, Célio Braga, Sam Druant, Studio Formafantasma, Jaime Hayon, Bé Helfferich, Sheila Hicks, Lex Horn, Susanne Khalil Yusef, Marc Mulders, Regula Maria Müller, Lilas Patard, Alet Pilon, Kustaa Saksi, Jennifer Tee, Anna Verwey-Verschuure, Roy Villevoye, Lam de Wolf and others.
With thanks
This project was made possible with the support of the Province of Noord-Brabant, the Municipality of Tilburg and the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science.
